Upon my finger I have a ring,
It’s made of finest gold-a,
And, lady, it thy steed shall bring
Out of the pinner’s fold-a.
Miller, in his ‘History of the Anglo-Saxons,’ relates a pretty story of a ‘bribe’ ring, an episode in the battles between Edmund Ironside and Canute. It was on the eve of one of these conflicts that a Danish chief, named Ulfr, being hotly pursued by the Saxons, rushed into a wood, in the hurry of defeat, and lost his way. After wandering about some time, he met a Saxon peasant, who was driving home his oxen. The Danish chief asked his name. ‘It is Godwin,’ answered the peasant; ‘and you are one of the Danes who were compelled yesterday to fly for your life.’ The sea-king acknowledged it was true, and asked the herdsman if he could guide him either to the Danish ships, or where the army was encamped. ‘The Dane must be mad,’ answered Godwin, ‘who trusts to a Saxon for safety.’ Ulfr entreated this rude Gurth of the forest to point him out the way, at the same time urging his argument by presenting the herdsman with a massive gold ring, to win his favour. Godwin looked at the ring, and after having carefully examined it he again placed it in the hand of the sea-king, and said: ‘I will not take this, but will show you the way.’ Ulfr spent the day at the herdsman’s cottage; night came, and found Godwin in readiness to be his guide. The herdsman had an aged father, who, before he permitted his son to depart, thus addressed the Danish chief: ‘It is my only son whom I allow to accompany you; to your good faith I entrust him, for remember that, there will no longer be any safety for him amongst his countrymen if it is once known that he has been your guide. Present him to your King, and entreat him to take my son into his service.’ Ulfr promised, and he kept his word. The humble cowherd, who afterwards married the sea-king’s sister, became the powerful Earl Godwin, of historic celebrity.
In former times rings denoted quality, if we may judge from the expressions in an old play (‘First Part of the Contention: York and Lancaster;’ Shakspeare Society):—
I am a gentleman, looke on my ring,
Ransome me at what thou wilt, it shall be paid.
In the popular German ballad of ‘Anneli,’ or the ‘Anneli Lied,’ translated by Mr. J. H. Dixon (‘Notes and Queries,’ 3rd series, vol. ix.), the maiden, whose lover is drowned in the lake while swimming, is in a boat with a fisherman who recovers the body, which she places on her lap:—
And she kiss’d his mouth, and he seem’d to smile,
‘Oh, no, I will not repine,
For God in heaven hath granted him
A happier home than mine.’
And she chaf’d in hers his clammy hands—
Ah! what does the maiden see?
There was a bridal-ring for one
Was never a bride to be.
She drew from his finger that posied ring,
‘Fisherman—lo! thy fee!’
And clasping him round and round she plunged,
And scream’d with a maniac glee—
‘No other young man in Argovie
Shall drown for the love of me!’
Mr. R. S. Ralston, M.A., in his ‘Songs of the Russians,’ mentions an interesting custom in connection with rings: ‘Among the games is that called the “Burial of the Gold.” A number of girls form a circle, and pass from hand to hand a gold ring, which a girl who stands inside the circle tries to detect. Meanwhile they sing in chorus the following verses:—
See here, gold I bury, I bury;
Silver pure I bury, bury;
In the rooms, the rooms of my father,
Rooms so high, so high, of my mother.
Guess, O maiden, find out, pretty one,
Whose hand is holding
The wings of the serpent.
The girl in the middle replies:—